I don't know about you, but I'm still digesting that meal. It was great :-) But yes, we can find pizza or thai or other catering for $5-$10 per attendee.
I'll write to Yochai and Gabriel to see if he's available in May. Let's play that by ear -- if he is, we should have an evening with him, even if it's not a big high-attendance event. He is a lovely person and sincerely interested in the sorts of things that wikipedians chat about. It could just be a social dinner, not a talk (he might like that better too).
S.
On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 1:23 PM, Dominic dmcdevit@cox.net wrote:
On 4/24/12 12:49 PM, Gabriel Fishman wrote:
Hi all,
It was terrific to meet all of you at the general meeting on Sunday. I'm very excited about taking our local efforts to the next level.
I wanted to follow up on the idea of hosting a meeting where we invite a local professor who has conducted research on Wikipedia and free culture to be our guest speaker. SJ suggested Yochai Benkler at the Berkman Center (http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/ybenkler). Our preliminary plan was for SJ to make the initial contact and for me to handle the follow-up and the logistics.
I'd like to get started as soon as possible since we're so close to the end of the semester. I have a couple of questions for the group:
- Do we want to potentially combine this with the regular meetup we've
scheduled for May 14th? 2. Do we want to allocate some money for pizza (there may be a way to get a student group at Harvard to cover this)? 3. Should we consider postponing the event until the Fall, given that many schools are in the midst of finals?
I think we should aim for giving a little more notice for special events, especially since it may take several days before we all the logistics are worked out and we can start publicizing. At the same time, our fall is also starting to look a little crowded, with Wikipedia Loves Libraries (2-3 seem possible already) and Wiki Loves Monuments. We could go for late May or over the summer, or maybe we could try for late August, hopefully after most schools are in session but before all the other fall events. In any case, the guest speaker's schedule is the most important consideration, and that might make our choice for us.
As for pizza, if not Harvard, between the generosity of Wikimedia DC and Wikimedia NYC, and the WMF grant process, we can certainly find funding for food if we plan for it. (And I suggest we avoid any more $30 dinners. ;-) )
Dominic
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